Summering by Nina Quigley

A Summer Poem by Nina Quigley

SUMMERING 26/7/14

Rain creeps quietlyinto my consciousnessfrom the open windowas I waken to a soft dayafter several torrid days of heat.

For once in Irelandthe hot sand burned our feet,and we had to hop sharpishdown to the water,to spend languid periodsof uncharted timeswanning about in the salton body boards,being casually nipped by sea lice.

We returned home ravenousway past dinner-time,well pricked and cured,our bodies tiredbut singing with satisfactionat such a rare summering.

A Summer Story – Full Circle by Leela Soma

Full Circle

Saturday 23 rd. August 1969, a day to remember, forever. They waved me off to my new life in Glasgow. My mum and the whole family. Tears glistened in their eyes, mine filled with tears and a nervous chill spread across my spine as I settled into the Air – India seat. The Maharaja beamed down from the cabin décor, that smile gave me little succour.

Those were the reactions when I left for Glasgow, from friends. What did I know about Glasgow? Very little. I tried to read up but try as I might there was little to help me visualise this beautiful city. Those were the days before the internet, smart phones or Google.

It was my mum’s face, her tears and her love that was etched in my heart. Those hectic days when she tried to get everything possible in the suitcases and the ‘unaccompanied’ luggage with clothes, every spice, condiment, my favourite sweets that she could possibly pack was stuffed in there. All wrapped tight with her love. Did I realise how much pain she was going through?

Seeing a child off to a faraway country is heart breaking. The three minute phone calls costing £1 a minute were a luxury that one could not indulge in often, in 1969. My parents made all the effort, visited me whenever they could, and helped me to settle in the new country. But those three thousand miles across the ocean was not easy to bridge. Yet, Glasgow eventually became my home from home. The two homes I cherish now. One, my birth city of Madras (it will always be Madras to me, not Chennai) and Glasgow, my home in which I have stayed twice as long as in the city where I was born.

Well, it has come full circle. My only child is now living in another continent. Yes, we have Facetime, Skype, cheap phone calls, none of which my mum had. Friends say ‘She is only a plane trip away.’ Short visits at Christmas or a summer break. Each year, as one gets older, the parting gets harder.

You want their happiness and you smile through your tears.

I understand it more now, my mum’s sweet smile with the pain in her eyes.

Mary Irvine: The Whistle

The Whistle

I had set my alarm to ensure I was up in good time. I am normally up well before 7am but this morning was extra-special. I turned on the radio and waited, listening to the scene being set. At 728 am I stood in remembrance of an event of 100 years ago. A whistle sounded the end of a respectful silence. 100 years ago a similar whistle sent thousands to death or a life-time of mental, physical suffering. The following just ‘came’.

Tommy heard the whistle. Sweat ran down his back, soaking already damp patches under the webbing of his backpack, armpits, crotch – that wasn’t sweat. He wiped each hand in turn near down a trouser leg.

The whistle stopped. He heard a voice calling:

‘Tommy, kettle’s just boiled, breakfast’s ready.’

The picture is one of the ceramic poppies from the Tower of London display. I count myself privileged to have the care of one. A gift from my son. Rest assured this one will never appear on eBay or similar sites whilst I live!

Shy Wolf by Nina Quigley

On a recent visit to Ireland I met my friend Nina Quigley and we had a great chat on the topic of writing. I learned that Nina had branched out from writing poetry and had written some short stories. When I told her about the Sad and Happy Summer Stories and Poems I had been adding to my website, she contributed her captivating story – Shy Wolf.

Shy Wolf

She’s standing at the cooker, just back from the beach, making an omelette for lunch, frying potatoes, onions, peppers and garlic. She’s waiting for the cubed potatoes to soften in the hot olive oil, so she can add the eggs she’s just beaten to a froth. The extractor fan is blowing hard just above her head, and she’s getting hot and sticky all over again. She can feel the beginnings of a sun headache start at the base of her skull. She’s tired and achy with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

She sighs and looks down at her slightly-tanned, sandy feet on the cool kitchen tiles. They look good, even through the lenses of her reading glasses which she’s forgotten to take off. Her feet are slender and long-toed, a dancer’s feet, someone once told her. The plum-coloured polish gleams richly on her toe nails, and she thinks, “Mm, good enough to eat”. She closes her eyes, and tastes high-summer berries in her mouth, warm, fat and woody. She imagines herself holding them there for a while, delaying the moment she finally swallows the soft, juicy pulp. She licks her lips, and sighs with satisfaction.

And that’s when she becomes aware that her feet are being licked by a warm, slightly rough tongue, gently, insistently, thoroughly. She opens her eyes, and looks down in alarm. An animal, a dog, no, a wolf has emanated from beneath the ground, and is calmly going about his business there. His long, wet, clever tongue is finding the secret places in her that ache, have ached. His grey eyes fix her with a calm stare, as he continues with his work. He seems to be telling her there’s nothing to fear.

She closes her eyes once more and surrenders to the intense pleasure of his touch. Her feet feel as if they are dematerialising, and a warm blush begins to rise to her knees and beyond. She begins to moan with contentment, even as she tells herself this can’t really be happening. Too soon the licking stops. She looks down to find the wolf has gone, his task completed. She thinks she detects a hint of spittle on her left toe nail, but it quickly evaporates before her eyes.

“What was that all about,” she wonders. Did she imagine it? Hardly. Maybe. But there are two things for certain; her incipient headache has miraculously disappeared; and the potatoes are burnt to a frazzle before her in the pan.

Stuck in a timeless loop
morphed from the past singing,
not knowing who, if anyone,
is listening,
or ever had listened to a single word being said?

In 1958, Gerald Holtom, a designer and former World War II conscientious objector from West London, persuaded The Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War that their aims would have greater impact if they were conveyed in a visual image. The “Ban the Bomb” symbol was born which would later be adopted by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He considered using a Christian cross motif but, instead, settled on using letters from the semaphore – or flag-signalling – alphabet, super-imposing N (Nuclear) on D (Disarmament) and placing them within a circle symbolising the Earth.
Holtom later explained the Genisis for his idea, “I drew myself, an individual in deep despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad.”
In Goya’s painting, The Third of May 1808, the peasant actually has his hands facing upwards.
The designer came to regret the symbolism of despair, as he felt that peace was something to be celebrated and wished he’d inverted the symbol.

THE BOYS OF THE SOMME by Brian Whittingham

Like military apparitions the re-enactors
thread their way through early morning commuters
heading for another day at the office.

These spirits are dressed in
pristine WW1 khaki British uniforms
and wear no mud or blood no fear or terror …

and though we cannot see the bodies
strung out on the wire’s barbs
as if still marionettes with severed strings

and though we cannot splash
through puddles of rat infested trenches

and though we cannot hear the deafening crash of shells
nor the machine-gun clatter nor the thud thud thud
of yet another hail of bullets.

and though we cannot scratch the lice from our tunics

and though we cannot smell the stench of hurtling death

and though we cannot see
the French boys with their red trousers
nor the German boys with their spiked helmets.

and though we cannot walk the Picardy countryside
through cornflower blue and poppy red …

We somehow feel we can empathise
with the bereaved families who could see their dead loved ones
walk in amongst the busy city crowds way back in their day

so these re-enactors do something to us,
as they sing ‘We’re here because we’re here’
and hand out their calling cards of death.

A Summer Poem: White Nights by Finola Scott

White Nights

In twilight silvered gardens
in uncurtained bedrooms
people stop
stumble from dark pubs
check their watches
look up and smile.
This northern sky shimmers with
stretched summer light.

The stars have bunked off, leaving
the Moon to guard their beds.
A lonesome fox lopes careless
across sequinned lawns,
passed the Ancestors
saluting the Stones.
On the horizon a low fire
smoulders through the night .
The world turns towards the sun.

A Glasgow Graduate from Syria – Summer 2016

This isn’t a story as such but a sharing of a pleasant and thought provoking event.

Today I met my friend Issi for a little catch up before the holidays. I’m a bit nosy and having had many years of close ties with the University of Glasgow – as a mature, more mature and getting-on-a-bit student – I find it hard to hold back from asking questions, when I see someone in the West End dressed in a kilt, clutching a scroll and accompanied by well dressed companions.

Just such a group sat beside us in Smug Cafe in Great George Street. They needed some extra chairs so we had a bit of shuffling around and then I asked the kiltie if he’d just graduated. Of course, he had, as B.Sc. in Astrophysics. He didn’t say but he must have gained a very good degree as he’s now heading off to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to study for a doctorate.

In June in Glasgow West End you can meet any number of groups brought together to celebrate graduations. These people had traveled from Newcastle and Sweden to celebrate their brother’s achievement – the beautiful little girl was shy and sweet. She’d been born in Glasgow. It was a pleasure to meet Husni and his family from Syria.

Sharing this snapshot of happiness was poignant and uplifting,

There’s turmoil in our country with all the recent chicanery, odious political bullying, xenophobia and economic uncertainty that we’ve been experiencing – it’s nothing compared to Syria.

1816 – The Year of No Summer by Mary Irvine

Charles Ogle In Frankenstein 1910

In May, 1816, the poet, Shelley and his lover, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,travelled to Switzerland to meet Lord Byron. Byron and Shelley had both rented houses near Lake Geneva and were constantly in each other’s company. Shelley recorded that being with Byron inspired him.

It was a strange summer for that year summer was non-existent. Spring was as normal in Europe and Northern America but the promised warm, sunny days of summer never arrived. It was so cold people called it ‘The Little Ice Age’. The rain was incessant. Crop failure led to famine. But it did result in some of our greatest literature, for, unable to go out, Byron challenged the others to write a ghostly tale each.

Mary Shelley, as she became, wrote the highly moral Gothic horror ‘Frankenstein’. Originally published anonymously, it has never been out of print. It tells of the scientific creation of a man and its dire consequences. She claimed the idea came to her ‘in a waking dream’.

Shelley produced ‘Fragment of a Ghost Story’. Byron wrote the beginning of a vampire story. His travelling, personal physician, Polidori, later used this to write what is recognised as the first vampire novel, ‘The Vampire’.

And what caused the demise of that summer? Scientists now believe the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambour in the Indian Ocean was responsible as its dust had shrouded the entire Earth, blocking all sunlight and causing the climatic changes.